Two schools in Pope County were among the 96 schools statewide that were placed on probation Monday by the state Board of Education, but administrators from Dover and Pottsville said Tuesday the problems their schools were cited for have already been corrected.

Pottsville Middle School and Dover Middle School were placed on probationary status for similar accreditation standards violations.

According to Randall Williams, Pottsville superintendent, Pottsville Middle School was cited for two violations.

"First, in the sixth grade, we had some students who were not taking all the required art or music that they were supposed to have," Williams said. "This has been corrected for this year by enacting minor schedule changes.

The other violation occured in course scheduling for fifth-grade students.

"The standard at that time called for 60 minutes a week in art and music," Williams said. "We were offering a full nine weeks of art and music, which is a much better way of delivering instruction in these areas.

"Apparently the state agreed with this because this year's new standard allows this method of organizing instruction in these areas. In other words, we will not have to change anything in this area to be in full compliance this year."

The violation Dover Middle School was cited for was a similar scheduling conflict for physical education, according to Superintendent Dan Lovelady.

"We found out during the state comprehensive compliance monitoring last spring that we would be cited for how we offered P.E.," Lovelady said. "We offered P.E. in a wheel setting. In other words, students would take P.E. every day for a semester at a time.

"The problem was P.E. had to be offered a minimum of once a week for the entire year. The students were getting the same amount of time they would have if we'd spread it out over the entire year, but that wasn't what the standard said."

Lovelady said the problem has been corrected, and the school will offer physical education once a week for the entire year for its students.

"We felt like what we had done would meet the standards, but we found out during our compliance monitoring that it would not," Lovelady said. "So, we fixed the problem."

The state Education Board put 96 of the state's 1,118 public schools on probation for exceeding student-to-teacher ratios, employing unlicensed teachers or violating other standards for school accreditation in the 2004-05 school year.

Three school districts - Heber Springs, Marvell and Ouachita - appealed the probationary status. But neither Williams nor Lovelady planned to appeal the citations on their districts.

"We were surprised by these violations but chose not to appeal them because they were so minor and easily corrected," Williams said.

Three schools in Yell County were also placed on probationary status - S.C. Tucker Elementary School in Danville, Western Yell County High School and Ola High School.